Critical summary: UNESCO's New life for historic cities

2019

Critical summary NEW LIFE FOR HISTORIC CITIES: THE UNESCO’S HISTORIC URBAN LANDSCAPE APPROACH ROLAND LÁPOSI

Introduction The New life for historic cities is a UNESCO document (2013) introducing the historic urban landscape approach with seven key actions and four tools adaptable on city-wide level. The main audience are policy makers and urban professionals, economies actors and individuals involved with urban development activities within the private, public or civic spheres.

The document places high emphasis on the urban heritage as an asset to be integrated into planning and development processes and decision making. The purpose of the booklet is making the case for the adaptation of the approach through examples and best practises. It suggests a broad framework to integrate the different sectors and governance levels holistically. It is adaptable in very different political and administrative systems as it gives general advices and vague on the matters of implementation without time limits.

In some cases, the document fails short to highlight potential unintended and negative consequences in its argument, which must be addressed before embarking on adoption. This critical summary intends to raise and follow through questions on topics, which are relevant for local authorities in cities like Edinburgh.

Summary The publication is a visually appealing, with clear layout and structure. By reading through the pages the reader first gets a strong message about the different scenarios waiting for the cities in the future.

Page-wide photos of attractive places - implying what we can achieve, and visual examples of threats evoking imminent dangers (Figure 1), are both part of the visual tools applied to convey the main message: the new balance and long term success is dependent on integrating the different – heritage, economic, environmental and sociocultural - approaches (page 9).

Figure 1: Visual tools: flooding somewhere in Pakistan; mass urbanisation in China, market exploitation in Venice (Italy) in contrast with the liveable public space in Quito (Ecuador). Source: New life for cities (UNESCO, 2013) page 2-3,6-7

The booklet is based on the Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape (UNESCO,2011). It aims to foster economic development and social cohesion, to raise awareness and involve more people in conservation and seek innovative schemes (page 4) by introducing, explaining and advocating for the

use of historic urban landscape approach. It states that tangible and intangible heritage are valuable sources and resources of the urban life as well as drivers for “creativity, innovation and urban regeneration” (page 2). It also emphasises the importance of urban heritage, as an asset, to be holistically integrated into city planning and development processes and decision making, while advocates for that the historic urban context and new developments can and should interact and reinforce each other’s role and meaning (page 5).

The structure is straightforward, and it can be broken down to five main parts: (1) Explains what historic urban landscapes are and the pressures they are facing with (Page 4-7) (2) Argues for the use of historic landscape approach and showcases best practises (Page 9-11) (3) One of the key parts of the booklet is the “Layers of the city” which helps understanding what the historic urban approach means by illustrating the different layers over the photo of the Millenium Bridge in London (page 12-13). This makes it easy to digest the otherwise very broadly ranging aspects in the urban context. By asking questions, it also helps “overseeing” the emerging issues as a city leader would.

(4) After offering this unique view, the brochure forms a strong argument of the expected benefits of adaptation, focusing mainly on the potential economic benefits. The illustrative page accompanied to this section has only one thing to show beyond those outcomes the “strengthened sense of place” (page 14-15).

(5) In the next section, the document defines the 7 key actions of the “historic urban landscape approach in action” (page 16) and the four tools outlined in the Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape, needing to be adapted to the local context (UNESCO, 2011, IV. Tools).

They are: (1) Knowledge and planning tools; (2) Civic engagement tools;(3) Financial tools and (4) Regulatory systems. It also implies that they must be “mixed” in order to work. Communicating the tools through illustrations is very helpful and easy to understand. On the following pages the reader can see selected best practise cases with the applied tools highlighted for better understanding (page 17-21).

Considerations The New life for historic cities is very ambitious and optimistic in what it says, but in order to adapt the suggested approach, it is evenly important to look at it what it doesn’t mention. Especially true this in instances, where the argument fails short to explicitly highlight the potential consequences.

International policy contexts The historic urban landscape approach and its actionable elements are reinforced by the main relevant UN international frameworks. The International guidelines on urban and territorial planning highlights that integrated planning is essential to achieve a better quality of life with respect to cultural heritages and diversity (page 14-16) The New Urban Agenda (United Nations, 2016) also places emphasis on “natural and cultural heritage, both tangible and intangible, in cities and human settlements…through integrated urban and territorial policies…” (38) and on “vibrant, sustainable and inclusive urban economies, building on … cultural heritage and local resources” (45).

To fully assess the historic landscape approach, its actions and tools against the SDGs (United Nations, 2015) is beyond the limitations of this critical assessment, but if followed through they could help achieving the SDG 7, 8, 9, 11 and 13 (Figure 2).

Figure 2: The adaptation of the historic landscape approach can help delivering the highlighted SDGs. Source: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdgs

They all have a common trait in that they all acknowledge the importance of city level approaches (local authority or municipality).

Tangible and intangible cultural heritages (ICH) The document focuses on the tangible parts of the cultural heritage. Though it does mention the importance of the intangible elements, when it comes to action there are no clear guidelines apart from that the reader can read into it implicitly. For example, the “Towards a new balance” section (page 9) is all about planning, design and implementation, or the “Benefits” section, is about economy, finance and capital value, even though it implies that a strengthened sense of place (page 15) could be achieved. The only real example is the case study of Fez (page 11), where traditional craftsmanship methods were revived. It might be possible that ICH should be understood as being embodied in the of the urban fabric via appearance and by the diversity of uses and functions within the urban heritage environment, but it is an open interpretation.

The real benefits The most contradictory point of the document when talks about the benefits. It lists higher land and property values as a source of revenue to pay for conservation. It also remarks that this attracts highend services and residents willing to pay more for locations. What it fails to mention though, that one consequence is gentrification or “Airbnb-isation” as in the case of Edinburgh, which replaces the local resident with more affluent people and alters the community which has been shaping the urban environment and providing the social fabric of the cultural heritage.

The approach in action Implementing the 7 key actions raises many issues to solve, especially on local level. Action 1 is about undertaking a full assessment of resources, which is time consuming and requires significant human and financial resources and knowledge and skills, which might be not available in city level. In Edinburgh’s case the Historic Environment Scotland can provide such assistance, but in other places it might not be possible.

Action 2 on using participatory planning and stakeholder consultation is a good direction, but it also presumes that engagement is meaningful and would score high on Arstein’s ladder of citizen’s participation (1969). However, power-sharing within the governance system and between stakeholders can be problematic even in countries with strong democratic roots.

Action 3 on assessing vulnerability of the urban heritage to socio-economic pressures and climate change impacts is important, but it raises the question of what we are going to do with the gained knowledge. For example: are we allowing to install solar panels on every possible roof in order to use renewables and cut carbon use? How can we deal with change and authenticity in the urban heritage?

Action 4 integrating urban heritage values into the wider city development framework is about value choices because we must decide, if we really wanted to restrain and direct development activities by excluding options otherwise financially viable, which could be a constant source of conflicts.

Action 5 on prioritising policies and actions is like the points above as it requires to choose between priorities and to see them through.

Action 6 on establishing partnerships and management frameworks and 7 on setting up coordinative mechanisms is equally important, and there are examples for setting up business improvement districts or other organised and institutionalised ways of getting people together, but how can we singlehandedly broke down silos between sectors or dealing with disparity between the lobbying power of institutions, economic actors and individuals?

Conclusion The New life for historic cities attempts a huge endeavour to synchronise and balance many drivers and aspects of living an urban heritage landscape and offers action and tools to achieve it. It works well both on intellectual and emotional level. It offers solutions to enhance the liveability of historic urban areas, but it also carries many implicit and explicit challenges, especially financial and capacity building types, when implementing them. It is not necessary a bad thing as it does force governance actors and stakeholders, community members and residents to make decisions and answer the most important question: How far are we willing to go to achieve it?

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References Arnstein, S. (1969) ‘A Ladder of Citizen Participation’ Journal of American Institute of Planners, Vol. 35,No 4, July 1969, pp 216-224 UNESCO (2011) Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape, including a glossary of definitions [online]. Available from: http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.phpURL_ID=48857&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html (accessed on: 26/10/2019) UNESCO (2013) New life for historic cities – The historic urban landscape approach explained [online].

Available from: https://whc.unesco.org/en/activities/727/ (accessed on: 26/10/2019) United Nations (2016) New Urban Agenda [online]. Available from: http://habitat3.org/wpcontent/uploads/NUA-English.pdf (accessed on: 29/10/2019) United Nations (2015) Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development [online]. Available from: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/21252030%20Agenda%20for%20Sustai nable%20Development%20web.pdf (accessed on: 30/10/2019) UN-Habitat (2015) IGUTP - International Guidelines on Urban and Territorial Planning [online].

Available from: https://new.unhabitat.org/sites/default/files/download-managerfiles/1486109872wpdm_IG-UTP_English.pdf (accessed on 29/10/2019)